Gods and Monsters
by batarians
Summary: It was the person she'd become. She was cold, hard ice. The Illusive Man had poisoned her, but had the poison always been there?
1. Chapter 1

It was Elysium all over again.

She could hear them screaming. Their desperate pleads for mercy; for _anything_. Among the sporatic bursts of gunfire, she could hear them dying.

Despite the afternoon Thessian sun spilling through the foliage she could see the broken bodies through her squinted eyes. She watched them die. Their bodies shaking with fear, their desperate hands groping the air for something to hold onto, something they would never find. Hope.

There was no helping them.

"Commander," Javik said from behind her, his voice startlingly close. "We must leave."

But of course. She had a mission. She had a purpose. Not everything was lost. Not yet. She couldn't afford to care about these people; she could do nothing other than leave them to die - and she'd become quite good at that over the past few weeks.

It was the person she'd become. She was cold, hard ice.

She shot a glance back to Liara, who was crouching on the ground, her head in her hands. The screams of her own people penetrating her mind, impossible to ignore. She peered up and met her commander's gaze. Though her eyes were dark and empty, the corners of her mouth pulled down into a grimace, she nodded her agreement.

They had to leave Thessia.

It struck her, as they readied their weapons, that Javik would be finding this hard, too. It was common knowledge that the prothean shared no great love for the asari, but this was a familiar scene to him. Born into chaos and Reaper war, this was all Javik had ever known. He was a hardened soldier, but that did not negate him from the effects of seeing such carnage.

This was not the case with her. She'd seen so much over her short life. She felt old beyond her years. Exhausted. Drained. But she had not yet reached her point of breaking. Not even after seeing the Reapers engulf Earth. She was still here; still fighting. She had become more familiar with death than any person should have to be. Now, it was all she knew. It was all she needed to know.

Hitching her rifle over her shoulder, she peered around the corner of the broken wall they had taken shelter behind. The remaining Reaper squad had retreated, leaving only a few scattered batarian husks. Fortunately they paid Shepard no mind, too busy feeding off the corpses that littered the field.

There was a time when the sight of that would have turned her stomach.

"Cannibals," she muttered to Javik, who had taken position beneath her, crouching low. The atmosphere around him rippled, sending shivers down her spine. She'd always felt uneasy around biotics - and Javik's were especially eerie.

With a few precise shots and a punch of biotics, the field was clear. They ran cautiously over the bodies and piles of rubble, Liara dragging behind. When they hit flat ground, the three of them broke into a sprint.

Shepard was exhausted to the point of collapse; her legs numb under her chunky armor. She didn't know how long she had before giving up. To spur her body onward, she shouted mental orders to herself. Left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, right.

Just like her N7 days. Except this was real in a way that N7 hadn't been. She'd been thrown into all kinds of chaotic situations, but this was different. This was, potentially, the end of everything. It all weighed on her.

That's what kept her running.

The miles they ran blurred into nothingness. It was simply her, her gun, and her burning legs. Left, right, left, right, left, right. She flew past the piles of dead bodies; husks and humans, asari and creatures she's scarcely seen before. Twisted, melted metal and the remainders of the city. Gone. Nothing but burning debris.

Left, right, left, right, left, right, le-

"There," Javik said, sucking in a shallow breath. "The ship."

The Normandy had never seemed so beautiful. Behind her, Liara made a choking sound that was somewhere between a cry of joy and a sob. Javik kept running. So did she.

By the time she cleared the ramp, her face was damp with tears and sweat. She was shaking uncontrollably, her grip on her weapon loosening as it crashed to the floor. Her boots, her armor - they seemed to triple in weight. She fell forward, feeling her grasp on her own consciousness slip.

And then it was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

Chakwas was furious.

"Your cybernetic implants do not make you invulnerable to basic human needs, Commander. You still need to eat. You still need to sleep. You need to _take care of yourself_." The doctor held in her hand a datapad, glowing blue. Her other hand was clasped around a metal syringe, the contents masked by its steel surface.

"To put it plainly, it's an adrenaline shot," she explained, noticing Shepard's wary expression. She slipped the datapad onto the foot of the medical bed. "You've had these before. They're Cerberus-designed. Miss Lawson had them duplicated should you ever need them again."

Shepard nodded.

Chakwas continued. "They're no substitute for _actual rest_, but Admiral Hackett insisted he speak with you. Frankly, I think he could wait a few hours," she said, rolling up Shepard's sleeve. With quick precision and ease, Chakwas administered the shot. It took mere seconds for Shepard to feel the change.

Chakwas disposed of the syringe and pulled off her gloves with a soft snap. "Stay there until you feel the full effects of the shot," she said. "Specialist Traynor will advise you when the _Normandy_ has established communications with the Admiral."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Always a pleasure, Commander." Her back was turned, her voice tight and withdrawn.

"Karin-" Shepard started.

Chakwas shook her head, turning to face Shepard, looking tired beyond her years. "There's only so much time you can stay running on empty, Commander. Remember that."

She exited the room without a second glance, leaving Shepard in the cold silence.

It didn't take long for the guilt to hit her. How could she worry about _herself_ when they'd just lost Thessia?

_Thessia._

_Liara._

_Cerberus._

The Illusive Man.

Losing Thessia had been a significant blow to what little confidence she had left in their cause. The guilt she felt was so intense it might swallow her up. But she was damn good at burying her emotions, because she was a _damn good soldier_.

But the Illusive Man's betrayal had hurt. It was different to what had happened on Mars; his interference hadn't resulted in any major setbacks. But now, so close to the end, he'd left her with _nothing_.

She didn't realise she was crying.

_"There was a time I might have believed in what you're saying," Shepard had said, trying hard to mask her fury, "I _used_ to trust you. Not anymore. You're just another Reaper plaything."_

_"No, Shepard, you're wrong." He was condescending her, as he'd always done. Assuming his authority over her, though he no longer had that advantage._

_It still had the same effect on her. It spoke to the part inside of her that strived for worth - to prove herself to him, to _please _him. _

_"You're misguided," he continued. "Your feeble attempts to stop the Reapers are futile. Don't you see what's happening? They're distracting you, and you're walking right into their grasp. They've made you believe there's no other way; that you're out of options. But there _is _another option."_

_Shepard could have screamed at him. "There is no other option. You can't think to control-"_

_"It can be done. I know it can."_

_"You're insane," she said. "You only care about power. Stop pretending you're doing this for humanity. This has always been about you."_

_"Don't presume to know anything about me, Shepard," he spat back at her, grimacing. "I've done more for humanity than you could imagine."_

_But she _could_ imagine. She knew the horrible things he'd had done, and if there was more, she wouldn't be surprised. She could have killed him, then and there, had she not been speaking to his holographic projection. She could have snapped his arrogant neck._

_When had they become such strangers?_

_"We're at an impasse, then," he said, taking Shepard's silence as her protest. He sounded sincerely disappointed, as though he'd been trying to give her another chance - to persuade her to fight for him once again._

_"You're deluded," was her response._

_"And you're just proving to me how naïve you truly are," he said, sighing. His shimmering blue form toyed with an unlit cigarette between his forefinger and thumb. "Leng, the commander has something I need. Relieve her of it."_

The entire time he'd barely made eye contact with her. She mulled this over, still perched upon the bed in the medical bay. He was hiding something from her, that much was plain. She didn't presume to know him intimately, despite what they'd shared together, but she knew him well enough.

She shouldn't have felt so betrayed. She always knew he'd turn on her.

No matter how many times she swore to herself that she had never worked _for_ Cerberus, she couldn't believe it. She would only be accepting the lies she told herself. For a long time she had lived in denial, promising her friends that they were not working _for _Cerberus, they were simply working _with_ them. But every mission report went straight to the Illusive Man. She answered to him. By the end of it all, she _wanted_ to answer to him.

She'd been Cerberus through and through. Kaidan had been right about her all along.

Shepard shook the thought away, feeling the sting that Kaidan's name had left in her heart. _"I'll do whatever it takes to stop the Reapers,"_ she'd promised him, her pistol aimed between his eyes. _"Walk away from this, Kaidan." _Had she been no better than the Illusive Man? What had he turned her into?

When had she lost her sense of humanity? When had she lost her_self_?

The Skyllian Blitz had been the start. Living in the slums on Earth had hardened her, shaped her into the no-bullshit woman she was. She'd had to pay her own way, having no family. She dealt in smuggling, mostly. Red sand, contraband Alliance weapons and intelligence. She took care of herself. But she still had heart; she still had a sense of who she was.

It was Elysium that had truly changed her. They called her a hero on the vids; they called her a _god_. But after the Blitz, all she saw in the mirror were the beginnings of a monster.

She'd done horrible things since. Horrible, but necessary things. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, that kind of thing.

When she'd started up with Cerberus, the horrible things had escalated. More often she found herself shedding blood for the sake of shedding blood. Suddenly, she was all about _shoot first, ask questions later._

The Illusive Man, Cerberus - it had poisoned her. But had the poison always been there, inside of her, waiting for the chance to rear its ugly head?

Shepard sat up, wiping away a few stray tears. She couldn't do this to herself. She couldn't afford to _feel._ Once this was over, she could reflect on the things she'd done. She'd have time to mourn. But for now she had to fight, and to fight, she needed to stay focused. She _needed_ to be poisonous.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the delay! I haven't had Internet for a long, long time (don't get me started - it was _terrible_). What I'm doing for the next chapter or so is developing my Shepard, introducing her past choices. The meaty chapters are on their way.


End file.
